Guy Butler and South African culture

This paper looks at Guy Butler's theories about English South Africans and the English language. I have outlined his reputation as a critical thinker, poet and scholar, with a view to understanding the role he has played as an individual in South African cultural politics. I have also tried to trace some of the social roots and implications of the ideas he puts forward and the social purposes these serve. These have been investigated from a 'political' and sociological perspective. I have concentrated on his socio-political discourses as they have appeared in conference papers, journal articles and newspaper articles and the media response to the ideas has also been analysed. Butler's poetry and more properly literary work is not a direct concern of this paper and is not given extensive attention. I have concluded that Butler's work is an interpretation of South African reality which serves the purpose of promoting a set of mythical goals and purposes for English South Africans based on the founding myth of the 1820 settlers in the Eastern Cape